A language learners’ forum

My inner Star Wars nerd came out in the title of this (hopefully temporary) log. I am so glad that I found this site - I knew it was out there somewhere but I was offline for the past few days so I only just managed to locate it. In any case, I will be posting my language-related ramblings here until the HTLAL situation is resolved.

First, I don't know if I should be proud or embarrassed to admit this, but I managed to watch 25 episodes of Gran hotel in the last two days. My family officially thinks that I am insane and they are probably right. In my defense, this week I'm visiting my grandmother and I don't have wifi, so Netflix and videos in general are not an option. Thus I had decided to double my listening comprehension last week and double my reading this week. Well, I more than doubled my required LC. And I know that there is never a good spot to take a break in a TV show, but it seems like halfway through the second season of Gran hotel is an especially painful stopping point. Although I must admit that I've lost faith in the goodness of all of the characters except Julio, Alicia, and Andrés, and at this point Julio and Alicia are beginning to decline too. The amount of lying and sneaking around that happens in this show is incredible. Why doesn't anyone EVER tell the truth???

On the Spanish reading front, I am now on page 86 of El tiempo entre costuras. It's too early to be sure (more than 500 pages left) but I suspect that I will enjoy this book.

And as regards my Polish adventures, I have finally gotten to the part of Stara baśń that is unknown to me so I'm excited to discover what happens next. It was good that I reread the first 100 or so pages though because I had forgotten all but the most major plot points.

Ooooh...you're me, except in the future! Ha! I've watched the first four episodes of Gran Hotel, and El Tiempo entre costuras is next on my to-read pile. 25 episodes in two days...that's what I call dedication!

Stelle wrote:Ooooh...you're me, except in the future! Ha! I've watched the first four episodes of Gran Hotel, and El Tiempo entre costuras is next on my to-read pile. 25 episodes in two days...that's what I call dedication!

Haha, you have a good future to look forward to then! It is wonderful when something is a good study tool while being genuinely enjoyable, and both of these fit the bill. You'll have to let me know if your future self gets as addicted as I have!

1e4e6 wrote:In case you were wondering about El tiempo entre costuras, Atresplayer now seem to be doing an extended version of the televised drama:

http://www.atresplayer.com/television/series/el-tiempo-entre-costuras-extendida/temporada-1/capitulo-1-captulo_2015072000273.html

I read somewhere that this drama was the most expensive by gross spending on production of any programme in Spain. It is really good.

Thanks for the link! I seem to remember seeing part of the first episode a few years ago and I am planning on watching the whole series once I have finished the book. After 185 pages I am hooked, so it's good to know the television adaptation is high quality, too. Have you watched all of it?

I am so confused about whether I should be posting this update here or back on HTLAL - I guess I will continue updating my log here until the situation is resolved.

I am on vacation at my grandmother's this week and I don't have good internet or all of my books, so I'm taking it easy and just doing reading, listening, and flashcards (because abandoning Anki for a week would have truly disastrous consequences). I spent an hour today reviewing my Spanish cards and I am only 555 behind now; so close to catching up!

I am on page 232 of El tiempo entre costuras - very good so far. I can read it almost effortlessly, too, which is a good confidence boost. Also, I have paid a few visits to the public library and so I was able to watch a few more episodes of Gran Hotel. Watching this show has become easy, as well - I am catching almost all of the dialogue. Maybe C1 in November is not out of reach!

I am planning on buying Gramática del uso de español (C1-C2) to help me prepare, and I am going through FSI's Programmatic course to try to tie up any loose ends. I'll also take a look at the numerous sample tests and study materials available on the Cervantes website and elsewhere on the web.

I loved it Watched with my fashion designer mum. There were 11 long episodes - is it the regular or extended version? I know others watched 17 shorter episodes.

Thanks for the links. I am glad to hear that both of you enjoyed it - hopefully I will, too. I downloaded the Atresplayer app a while ago, although unfortunately a lot of the content is not available in the US. Maybe that changes if you subscribe? I will investigate because 2.67€ per month isn't bad at all, especially given the quantity of shows.

I am now two thirds of the way done with the book (page 404). I can see how they made a wonderful show out of it - all of the exotic locations and fascinating historical characters. I'm glad they managed to do it justice, especially since it's the kind of book that seems like it would be very hit-or-miss when it comes to TV adaptations. It's good to hear that they "hit" in this instance.

As I mentioned at some point (I think in my log on HTLAL), I can't believe I waited so long to immerse myself in Spanish shows. Águila roja and Gran Hotel have both been great so far, and my to-watch list is growing constantly.

I have had a very relaxed week language-wise (perhaps too relaxed), but I think the break did me more good than harm. Schedules are all very well, but I start feeling claustrophobic quickly and then I need to do something to mix things up or I'll just freeze and not do anything at all. I was looking at the calendar last night and I have four full weeks until school and insanity begin again; this is plenty of time to get things in order so that all my languages are ready to resist the extreme pressure and limited study time that the school year invariably imposes.

I did accomplish two major things this week.

1) I finally caught up on my Spanish Anki decks! What's more, it only took me 28 minutes to complete my reviews today, which makes me hopeful that after a few more days I will be able to keep reviews under 20 min per day and thus use the extra study time for something more interesting than flashcards.

2) I finished El tiempo entre costuras! This is one of the best books that I have read in a while in any language and I am looking forward to watching the TV adaptation. I am also very pleased with the fact that I managed to read a 600+ page book in a week; granted, if it had been in English, I would have finished it in a day or two, but this is still the fastest that I have ever read this number of pages in Spanish.

At the beginning I tried to add all the unknown words to my flashcards but I quickly abandoned this because honestly the words I didn't know didn't affect my overall understanding significantly, if at all. Basically, I just read for an hour or so and then looked up any frequent words that were unknown to me. It was very interesting to see how frequently María Dueñas employed certain words; I know this is a common thing with authors in general, to have constant recourse to a few dozen favorite words that other authors might not use as much, but it was especially funny because I was not familiar with some of her favorite words and thus I was hyper-conscious of their frequency. I would turn a page and exclaim, "What? That word again???" This happened with words such as agasajar, contundente, and plasmar, and I was perpetually annoyed when they popped up until I finally looked them up in a monolingual dictionary, figured out their exact meanings, and added them to my Anki decks. And then of course I was excited every time I saw them from then on, because I could add more examples of use to my mental catalogue.

Of course, there were also a few unfortunate words like desgranar whose meanings I wasn't able to quite pin down. (If someone could help me out with this word that would be amazing, incidentally. I've looked it up in multiple dictionaries and the figurative use of it is still eluding me.) I was sufficiently distraught at my inability to explain this word that when I opened up La sombra del viento and discovered the sentence "Desgranaban los primeros días del verano de 1945" in the opening paragraph, I slammed the book shut and yelled at it loudly for a few minutes. Of course then I had to explain to everyone why I was having a minor tantrum, and got the usual looks of incomprehension.

Make sure to update your profile with your log URL! It was a bit of trouble to find it scrolling through the forum, since usernames are not in a separate column. Anyhow, I'll be following along. Are you focused primarily on Spanish right now, or do you give time your your other languages?

SladeWilson wrote:Make sure to update your profile with your log URL! It was a bit of trouble to find it scrolling through the forum, since usernames are not in a separate column. Anyhow, I'll be following along. Are you focused primarily on Spanish right now, or do you give time your your other languages?

Ah, yes, thanks, I will update my profile. I am still figuring out how to use this forum but I'm getting better at it.

Currently I am focusing on my modern languages (Spanish and Polish) and Spanish seems to be getting most of my time. I will be attempting to rectify that this week. But Greek and Latin are definitely not out of the picture; in fact, since the school year is fast approaching, I will be starting grammar review and perhaps some translation over the next few weeks in preparation for my classes. During the school year I have to focus on my ancient languages, so during the summer I back off so as to have more time for my modern ones.